[pulseaudio-discuss] Reverting ade0a6f88464d8aecf83982d400ccfc402341920

[Mark Brown]

On Fri, May 13, 2011 at 10:11:55PM +0200, David Henningsson wrote:

> "
> We want to maximise quality while avoiding digital distortion, that's  
> basically the problem in a nutshell. We're assuming (sometimes  
> incorrectly; but that's our best guess) that this golden spot will be  
> achieved with all sliders at 0 dB.

> I think my approach makes sense, unless I'm missing something: If we're  
> aiming for something above 0 dB, let's round down to make sure we avoid  
> distortion, and if we're below 0 dB, let's round up to make sure we get  
> maximum quality.
> And then we always start with the control that's closest to the physical  
> hardware and work our way in.
> "

Do you mean distortion or do you mean clipping?  The general theory here
is that there's no way to recover extra data from an input in the
digital stages so you want to apply as much gain as possible in the
analouge domain there.  On output the reverse applies so you want to
do any attenuation in the analogue domain so you get the maximum
resolution from the DACs and attenuate their noise floor.